1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method and to an arrangement for entering the contents of the franking imprint into a postage meter machine of the type equipped with a chip card read unit and an appertaining control unit in order to simplify the country-specific or carrier-specific configuration of the postage meter machine.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Modern postage meter machines such as, for example, the thermal transfer postage meter machine disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,746,234 utilize electronic digital printer devices. It is thus fundamentally possible to generate arbitrary franking imprints. These usually contain a customer-specific advertising slogan imprint, a machine-specific and location-specific municipal postmark and a mail carrier-specific value imprint. It is know to produce customized logos for a customer-specific advertising slogan imprint in an EPROM for installation into the postage meter machine, for example of the type T1000, manufactured by Francotyp-Postalia AG & Co. This T1000 is built in various country versions that differ from one another in terms of hardware due to the extremely different approval regulations of the various national postal authorities. It is required in country-specific fashion for postage meter machines to permanently install the franking imprint with the postal symbol (value stamp) or, respectively electronically store the form of the imprint in postage meter machines having electronic printers. In the manufacture of the T1000, the postage meter machines, for example, are initialized country-specifically or machine-specifically before they are assembled, for example with a further EPROM insertion.
It is been disclosed (in European Application 88 429, and 99 110) to store the machine-specific machine serial number in a non-volatile memory (EEPROM). Such a setting in known systems is likewise implemented during the manufacture. A reentry into such a configuration program is thereby prevented by an inhibit bit.
The program disclosed in European Application 111 316 is stored in the program memory of the postage meter machine and contains firmware branch points. The data bits stored in an external memory (NVM) allow the program to be permanently reconfigured on the basis of a conditional branch. A version disclosed in European Application 111 317 contains a firmware variable program stored in the program memory of the postage meter machine. The data bits stored in an external memory (NVM) allow the program to be reconfigured. After this EEPROM handling, a sealing of the postage meter machine usually follows, so that replacement of the EEPROM is not a simple to task.
As an alternative solution, U.S. Pat. No. 4,424,573 discloses programming the serial number of the postal device by a data center. In European Application 131 967, a configuring of the postage meter machine ensues via a keyboard externally connectable to the postage meter machine. The configuration event is only possible once. The outlay required in the configuring is disadvantageous.
When the postage meter machine contains a postage computer, then weight information are entered by a scale, and the postage meter machine calculates the postage value for the value imprint. For such a system, European Application 566 225 (U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,077) discloses a method for data input into a postage meter machine that employs chip cards or a cellular communication network in order to enter rate changes. These also include specific configuration chip cards that, however, are intended for the user. Such chip cards, which contain a number of non-volatile memories or memory areas that can be separately accessed, and a microprocessor, are relatively expensive. The user inserts them individually into a single chip card read unit in succession in order to serially transmit data representing various types of information into the postage meter machine. The data stored in the postage meter machine can then be accessed during operation thereof. The necessity of storing all data in the postage meter machine from the outset is thus eliminated, since at least some of the data can be subsequently transmitted as needed. All data that could be requested by one of the postage meter machines, however, must be pre-processed by the data center regardless of whether the data are used or communicated later. The high outlay is disadvantageous, particularly in the image processing associated with the service of producing franking images for many different mail carriers. This either leads to delays that can cause high telephone costs for the customer given a communication by modem, or requires the data processing capacity of the data center would be greatly expanded. Such an outlay on the part of the data center is not justified when only a few users have access to such services and, thus, the economic feasibility is not assured. For example, the Deutsche Post AG already allows different graphic designs for the image of the post horn in the value imprint and these are in use. The large amount of data to be stored then also requires an expensive chip card and appertaining, expensive chip card reader unit. The subsequent installation of a modem would then also require expensive hardware and software modifications. For some geographical areas, for example for countries of the European Union, the different currencies will be eliminated in future and be replaced by the Euro. Postage meter machines such as the T1000-EURO®JetMail® of Francotyp-Postalia AG & Co. can be used in the transition phase as well as after the conversion to the Euro. No monetary values in the postage meter machine are lost. A part of the value imprint could therefore be designed uniformly in future, and only differences in the graphic design remaining due to the different mail carrier companies. Universal franking devices that are also suitable for private carriers (UPS, Federal Express, etc.) are of interest in the future.